Maciej Janaszek-Seydlitz

1944 Warsaw Uprising 50 years after

Genesis

          I do not know why a well-known historian of the Uprising, Prof. Dr Jan Ciechanowski, the author of the monography "Warsaw Uprising. An outline of the political and diplomatic background" (London 1974, Warsaw 1984), began his deliberations over the origins of the battle in Warsaw from July 1943. The summer of 1943 marked no event that could have triggered the Uprising itself or that would have had a more substantial impact on the decision to start the Uprising and the fate of Warsaw.
          The important dates for the Uprising, besides, of course, September 1, 1939, the day of the German invasion of Poland, include::
          - September 8 - 28, 1939 - the defense of Warsaw that had a significant impact not only on the September campaign of 1939, but also on the attitude and conduct of Warsaw residents;
          - dates of round-ups carried out by the German police in the city, followed by deportations of victims to concentration camps to meet death;
          - dates of executions and armed clashes with the occupant that can be construed as moral and psychological preparations for the main confrontation;
          - but also the days of September 17, 1939, and April 25, 1943.
          Why them as well?
          The Warsaw Uprising of 1944 took place in a major city being at the same time the capital of the country, and therefore it could have been viewed as a local event, an episode in the Polish-German war, one of many uprisings in capital cities of occupied Europe.
          In reality it had a broader dimension as it was set in the triangle: independent (though temporarily occupied) Poland - Nazi Germany - the Soviet Union subjected to the authoritarian rule of Stalin.
          The conflict between those three subjects of international law, which found its expression in Warsaw in the act of Uprising on August 1, 1944, manifested itself fully on September 17, 1939, when "the best Hitler's ally", as the Soviets were called by one of historians in the West [1], launched an attack on Poland desperately defending itself against the Germans.
          The consequence of this event was the partition of the country: Stalin took over almost 52% of its territory, while Hitler - over 48%, except that according to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of August 23, 1939, Stalin was to gain much more, i.e. almost 2/3 of the area.
          The USSR never renounced those spoils of war, not then, not in the period of July 1941 - April 1943, before they broke off diplomatic relations with the Polish government (which they re-established on July 30, 1941 in the face of serious losses inflicted by the Germans), let alone after their severance on April 25, 1943. They never did!
          The partition of Poland carried out in cooperation with Nazi Germany was to be a permanent fact. Poland lost half of its territory, and the potential compensations from Germany were not certain, nor were they indisputable. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact made our country dependent on the USSR and put us into conflict with Germany, regardless of its status in the future. It was also reasonable to suspect that the Soviet Union would strive to make Poland even more dependent. Molotov's words about Poland being "the monstrous bastard of the Treaty of Versailles" resounded until spring 1941, and their echo could be heard in various statements of the Leader of the First Proletariat State, incessantly criticizing the Polish Government-in-exile and other authorities of the Republic of Poland.
          And it was this basic situation: the Soviet annexation of the Polish territory in collaboration with the Germans and its joint occupation until "the German treason" (June 22, 1941), the terrible fate of Poles living under the Soviet rule in the eastern part of Poland (1939-1941), combined with massive deportations of a few hundred thousand Polish citizens into the Soviet interior, incarcerations of another couple hundred thousand, plus executions of at least several thousand Polish officers and soldiers [2] taken prisoner often without any armed resistance - all this had to be taken into account when undertaking the decision about the Uprising in the capital of Poland.
          The decision was made when the Red Army was once more crossing the borders of Poland in summer 1944, while the countries in the West, satisfied with the fact that the Soviets had taken on their shoulders most of war effort in Europe, were ready, similarly as in Munich in the past [3], to make concessions, especially if those concessions were at the expense of small Central European countries. Germany, at the same time, still dangerous and threatening to make use of its new "wonder-weapon" [4], was dragging the war out by putting up fierce resistance and was still able to deal blows to the Allied armies even half a year later (e.g. in the Ardennes).
          In July 1944 another "leader" was entering Poland, the boss of a totalitarian "super empire", who after the victory at Stalingrad in January 1943 had regained confidence to make further annexations, and who had been preparing for this move by severing diplomatic relations with the Polish Government-in-exile in April 1943 [5]. As a consequence, the Government ceased to be a partner and more than ever turned into an object of foreign intentions.
          Simultaneously, the United States, the greatest power of the West, seemed to be on Stalin's leash (as it was suggested through the conference of the Big Three in Tehran in November/December 1943), while Great Britain, diminishing in power and fearing that the Polish "impracticability" would expose it to an undesired conflict with the USSR, incapacitated the Polish Government in London by censoring its letters and Prime Minister's radio announcements.
          This incapacitation of the Government and other authorities in exile, and their awareness of things quickly heading in the wrong direction, forced the executives of the conspiratorial center of military and political control in the country (the leaders of the Polish Underground State) to take matters into their own hands and to make the last attempt at becoming an entity, not an object, in new Europe in statu nascendi. For the Polish authorities such an act of sovereignty was the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
          However, by liberating the capital as a result of the Uprising, by setting up the National Committee of the Council of Ministers (Deputy Prime Minister and three ministers of the Polish Government), by revealing the conspiratorial Polish Armed Forces (the Home Army), the Council of National Unity (the underground parliament), judiciary, police, social and political institutions, and at the same time by offering a large bridgehead on the Western bank of the Vistula (being the greatest water barrier before the Oder River) and the largest transport hub in Poland to the Red Army for free - all this entailed a serious danger.
          The Uprising posed a challenge to the USSR authorities and to the Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN). For it was here, in Warsaw, not in Lublin, the freshly liberated seat of PKWN appointed by Moscow, where the highest Polish authorities recognized by the West were installed, where the heart of the country was beating, where a piece of independent Poland could be found.
          The Uprising, striking Germany back, constituted a barricade to the Soviet plan of "peaceful conquer" of Central and Eastern Europe, a barricade that could be crushed or bypassed but that could not be ignored.